SFPS to lift closed-campus policy for seniors at lunchtime
Starting in January, eligible students will be able to leave school for midday meal
The high school lunch line just hit the fast lane. Seniors at Capital High School and Santa Fe High will be able to eat lunch off campus — with conditions — starting in January, following a 4-1 school board vote Tuesday night to alter the district’s closed-campus policy.
Sadie Webb, a Santa Fe High senior who supported the plan, called the decision “great progress.”
“Even giving students that small extra privilege of leaving campus for lunch shows them that they can take responsibility in the real world,” said Webb, who will turn 18 in December.
Board member Steven Carrillo, who pushed for the policy change during a September board meeting, applauded the vote, saying seniors are “responsible human beings and need to be treated as such.”
Board President Lorraine Price, who cast the sole vote against the measure, cautioned the panel in September against changing the closed-campus policy, saying it had been established several years ago following a crash involving students who had been racing back to campus during a lunch break.
“I don’t think this is worth the death of students,” Price said at the time. She did not comment on the issue Tuesday.
Several other school districts in New Mexico, including Albuquerque and Las Cruces, have policies that allow some students to leave campus for the lunch hour.
Not all seniors would be eligible for the privilege in the local district. They must maintain a 2.0 grade-point average, have less than 10 absences per year and have their parents sign a permission slip allowing them to take advantage of the new policy.
The district’s other high schools, including the Mandela International Magnet School and the Early College Opportunities campus, initially will not be included in the plan, though that could change down the line.
School district employees who presented the results of a committee study on the issue said there may be some disadvantages — students returning late to class or not at all, or causing problems off campus — but said the policy also might encourage students to work hard to earn the privilege and teach them trust and respect.
Educators and students interviewed about the issue also said the measure could ease overcrowding at the two high schools’ cafeterias at lunchtime.
One Santa Fe High student said she has waited over a half-hour in line to get her food, leaving her only 10 minutes to eat the meal before class.
Channell Wilson-Segura, the former Capital High School principal who now holds an administrative position offering support to principals across the district, told the board that Capital High administrators often field complaints from parents who say their children did not get a chance to eat because of the long lines.
But, she said, nearly all of that school’s students are enrolled in the federal government’s free and reduced-price lunch programs because they come from lowincome families. She doubted that many would take advantage of the opportunity to leave the campus.
Some board members voiced concerns in September that seniors granted the privilege of leaving campus might try to sneak younger students off campus in the trunks of their vehicles — a notion several seniors dismissed Tuesday.
“The people who are really focused on sneaking off campus have already found, or will find, a way to do so,” Webb said.
Megan Walsh, another Santa Fe High senior, said she didn’t think any of the students would find it “cool or fun to stuff someone in the back of their cars. That would ruin it for everyone else.”
When Price asked Santa Fe High Principal Carl Marano, who supports the new policy, if his school’s security guards are ready to pop open car trunks, just in case, he said they are “if need be.”
High-schooler Stephen Stith said the new freedom will help seniors prepare for a transition into the adult world. Most of them will end up taking jobs where “you rarely eat at work. … This is a good opportunity to help integrate us into adult society and prepare us for when we get a job.”